After several weeks of rollbacks, motorists should brace for another oil price hike starting Tuesday that can significantly impact the diesel-powered transportation sector.
In separate advisories on Monday, oil companies confirmed that the price of diesel, the so-called poor man’s fuel, will increase by a whopping P6.85 per liter.
Kerosene prices, on the other hand, will increase by P3.50 per liter and gasoline by P1.20 per liter.
“The new round of oil price hikes will impact our drivers because they will have to shell out additional pesos for their fuel expenses,” transport group PISTON president Mody Floranda said in an interview.
“We strongly condemn these massive upward price adjustments, we will mount protests to let the government know,” he added.
Based on the oil monitoring data from the Department of Energy, the cumulative increase in gasoline price as of 4 October stood at P14.45 per liter, diesel at P28.95 per liter, and kerosene at P23.25 per liter.
The DoE noted in its oil monitoring advisory that inventories remained tight in major global hubs. For instance, the US distillate fuel oil stocks fell by 2.5 percent in the week that ended on 23 September, down 11.8 percent from a year earlier.
It added that Singapore’s onshore commercial stockpiles of middle distillates, which include gas oil and kerosene, saw a 12.5 percent week-on-week drop to a 5-week low of 7.34 million barrels in the week that ended 28 September, down by 30.2 percent from the year-ago level.
As of 6 October, the price per liter of gasoline ranged from P59.90 to P69.70 per liter in Quezon City, Metro Manila’s largest city.
Diesel prices, meanwhile, range from P69.60 to P74.25 per liter in Makati City, the country’s top financial hub. In Manila, kerosene sold from P73.76 to P83 per liter.
Oil companies announce price adjustments every Monday to be implemented the following day’s morning.
They adjust their prices weekly based on the movement of the Mean of Platts Singapore — the regional pricing benchmark adopted by the deregulated downstream oil sector.